Weyland, NBN, and Jinteki beg to differ. Each of them have ways to make a runner pay dearly for emptying their hand to get an access or 3 (Jinteki with Snare!s and other RnD traps, W and NBN with cross pollination of kill and tagging cards). HB probably has it the worst in actually applying the damage, but it’s also the best type of damage when it comes to combatting Faust. Landing an Overwriter is absolutely crippling to Faust decks.
This is one of the problems I see with Faust = OP arguments. They say Faust can’t get flatlined because of IHW in hand when the access happens or 4+ cards at the end of the turn, but then turn around and say they can get in anywhere by pitching their whole hand. If you are doing the former, then you aren’t being aggressive and can be bluffed or the corp can play “hide-the-agenda”. If you are doing the latter, then you are highly susceptible to flatline.
Ok, obviously if you suspect the corp is on the Scorch plan that’s a different story. But in most cases, barring the fear of dying its perfectly ok. But when you’re playing Weyland there’s nothing worse then watching your Hadrian’s or Orion get eaten alive by 3 D4 counters and Knifed. Oh yeah, They are usually running one Plascrete anways. Again, I’m not saying a 100% win rate deck but you cant argue that its way beyond other runners and is stifling corp win rate to 40ish%
I find this to be effective with everything except the winning agenda. Unfortunately you need to score that one as well. Not the most original observation I know, but it’s a problem I seem to be having more frequently than I used to with kill decks.
Interesting analysis but too reductive IMO. I’ve played scores of games in this match-up as Whizzard and it’s not a cake-walk against a good player. Your claim that Whizzard will get consistent Medium 3+ runs on RND is not true. Double Architect by itself on RND actually becomes very taxing for Whizzcakes. Also keep in mind that Grimoire is not part of the equation. Getting your Medium off the ground against Foodcoats actually requires some serious tempo investment, in my experience. If you only focus on RND the whole game, you give ETF a very good chance to win. The agenda density is just too low to go all-out on RND against Foodcoats, generally. You have to pressure HQ at least somewhat to punish the Corp in the windows where you can’t afford the cards/tempo/credits to crack their remote and trash the Campaigns. You also have to commit a fair amount of ICE destruction to the remote, too. I’d say I normally trash 2 or 3 RND ICE against Foodcoats, but this is partly because at least 1 of the ICE is Architect. Trashing 8 ICE per game seems about right, though.
I don’t know what else people expect Anarch or frankly any faction to do against Foodcoats except destroy ICE. Purple ICE is becoming more ridiculously taxing every data-pack… Faust+Cutlery seems like a perfectly fair answer to servers like Turing/Ichi/Eli and Architect/Eli/Assassin/Eli
I think it’s a fair assessment that the community as a whole underplayed cutlery events. But one of the major reasons for that was that they are often situational and sit in your hand, like many powerful Anarch cards. Faust lets you get away with playing more niche cards because you can pitch them for value instead of them being dead draws.
If you mosey on over to the Competitive Kit thread, you’ll find that a bunch of us tried 2x Knifed in Kit and collectively found it to be a pretty OK way to spend 6 influence.
Of course, this was Kit, so we didn’t make big competitive waves, but it does say a little something about the power level of the cards.
You cannot both use every fork/knife/spoon at your disposal and also fuel Faust, because at some point you have to actually trash cards to break things, and you will have to make sacrifices somewhere.
2). Ok, not Ichi then. Architect, or Markus, or Turing, or Ichi 2.0 etc. etc. My point wasn’t “run 3 ichi you’ll be fine.” My point was Foodcoats had a ton of ice that costs 3+ cards to break with Faust.
I’ve played a Whizzard Faust deck competitively since August in a very tough and active meta, and you’re right – it does have a high win rate. But that’s mostly because people use bad ice (from a Faust perspective) in their decks. Foodcoats is not an easy matchup.
But that’s just it… if your meta consists of a bunch of Faust, then why aren’t you threatening the kill with every deck you make? That threat in and of itself slows the runner way down (or kills them if they don’t slow down).
I’d like to make sure I’m not being misinterpreted here, though. I think Faust is powerful. And he’s really good against a lot of popular decks. But I also think there are archetypes that he’s susceptible to.
Which has nothing to do with Faust. David has been a thorn in Weyland’s side since its release. And to this last point I will add that I agree that the Anarch card pool is quite oppressive at the moment, but I refuse to attribute that to any single card (that should be placed on the MWL, for example).
Personally that has not my experience with dumblefork vs. Hb food costs
It is not an easy matchup but it is not terrible for whizzard at all. If I was whizzard with wyldcakes and a medium facing 2 ichi 1.0s id click through one ( leaving the trace as most do ) and use 3 cards on the other. Its 3 clicks, 3 cards and 2 creds ( corps usually don’t pump ) which is costly but it’s worth it for several accesses and r&d lock. Given 2 forks, 3 parasites, and 2 clone chips (and usually same old thing or 2) at least one of those ichis is going down. Sure to be replaced by something else but at a net negative credit cost for the corp.
As for the better ice comment I think it’s a bit of a stretch to use 2 of the best ice in the game with a cost of 10 credits in your example and accuse others of wanting to win with 2 early game ice costing 3 credits. Corps having trouble with dumblefork are using elis, architects, tollbooths and ichis like everyone else.
I’m curious about this. Why not? ETF should have the money unless you’ve been able to trash every campaign they’ve rezzed. A BD and a tag is absolutely no joke vs Faust decks.
Usually because in order to pump it to something meaningful you’d have to invest way more than the BD and tag are worth. I’ve certainly seen good players pump a couple when the runner is low on creds though. It can be correct, but usually isn’t.
well if you’re spending clicks instead on a regular basis, then the corp has probably won. That’s a poor use of a turn.
Tempo comparison:
Faust: 6-8 cards + a Cutlery to kill one RnD ice, 1-3 card access. No cards left in hand.
EtF: 5 credits to replace an ice.
That seems pretty fair to me. I don’t even have to replace it immediately, as I already have another ice on RnD. And now you’re out most your hand, so I get to slot an Agenda in a remote for what is likely an unstoppable score.
You cannot just trash your hand with Faust and not expect a consequence for it.
But all I hear is people saying that Faust can run with no economy. If they are running into Ichi with <5 credits, I’d gladly spend the 5 for a BD if I’m as filthy rich as I’ve seen most ETF players. If they don’t clear the tag (using last clicks to get through?) then I’d also gladly spend the 2 more to get rid of Wyldside. Just 1 BD against Faust is pretty bad for them if you can get two ice to stick on a server. The arguments just don’t seem to be consistent is all.
I think because there’s arguments from people that know what they’re talking about, and arguments from people that don’t.
The Dumblefork deck has a lot of money in it, and it’s because it takes a lot of money to install and play all the things you want to. You just don’t usually use much of that money on running. Corp decks don’t tend to be too rich vs this deck (even HB), because they have to keep installing and rezzing new ICE over and over, plus any money assets usually aren’t long for this world in the face of 3 reoccurring credits a turn. All of these factors lead to making a trace boost something that you often don’t want to do, especially given that 1 BD isn’t that big a deal, even to a Faust deck. Id’ argue that the tag is a much bigger deal, if it sticks, because you can trash Wyldside.
I was just using Ichi 1.0 as an example, because it’s a commonly seen ice in EtF. I don’t think it’s unfair at all to expect a standard RnD run against Foodcoats to cost Faust 6 or more cards. Foodcoats has a lot of ice that when placed in pairs, will force Faust to pay 6 or more cards to make a run. Nearly any ice it draws will fit the bill. Even 5 cards would be a pain.
Or clicks, if you want to. But I feel that’s generally a bad idea – giving up your turn to see one or two cards off of RnD, while I spend my turn getting rich or putting agendas in a scoring remote.
Yeah… I don’t get this whole “not boosting the trace” thing. If I can give Dumblefork a Brain and a Tag guaranteed, I will boost every time. Even if it is a mountain of cred or me going broke.
Agreed. I’ve spent 11 or so a couple times on that trace. It’s worth it sometimes. That being said, Foodcoats is by no means "an awful matchup for Faust decks, I forget who said that. If a 60% win rate is your worst win rate, there is definitely something wrong.
What is wrong though, is the overall powerlever and synergy of the Anarch card pool. I’d argue that the crown jewel is Adjusted Chronotype though.
You know what would make Foodcoats a bad matchup for anarch? 3 click turns, or having to click for cards.
You know what would make Faust decks actually vulnerable to flatlines, rather than just theoretically? Having to use IHW to proactively draw.
Faust would be fine without pancakes. Again, Pancakes is ridculously broken no matter what break suite you use. Is it obscene in combination with Faust? Of course. Will you win 80% of games where you have the combo early using regular breakers. Yes.
I think this is fair. And it still allows for other colors to try using Faust and coming up with creative archetypes if they want to.
But spending 3 more pips to put pancakes in your deck really just means you lose 1 clone chip. It likely wouldn’t have the desired effect that the crowd who dislikes Faust would want.